More than 200 medical and nursing educators from across the U.S. converged on Cambridge, Massachusetts, Sept. 26-28, 2002, to learn about best practices and innovations in training clinicians to achieve new competencies that are necessary in today's health care system and required of residency programs by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).

The conference, "Are you ready? Practical Approaches for Achieving Required ACGME Competencies in Systems-based Practice and Practice-based Learning and Improvement," was organized by THCI and Partnerships for Quality Education. It was aimed at helping program directors and faculty in medical residency and advanced practice nursing programs to identify instructional approaches, curriculum resources, and assessment tools, specifically in the areas of Systems-based Practice and Practice-based Learning and Improvement, that they can adapt and incorporate in their own training programs.

Plenary sessions, workshops, and hands-on exercises focused on key issues relating to teaching the new competencies:

• Trends in health care and implications for training
• Educating health professionals
• Assessing competencies in medical education
• Strategies for change

Click here to view a summary PowerPoint presentation, excerpted from the plenary sessions. For more information on the conference content and action steps implemented by participants in their own settings after the conference, click here.

Course books containing presentation slides and reference materials, distributed to conference attendees, can be purchased for $125, while supplies last. Click here to order.

Click here for information on THCI's 2003 national conference: Competency Assessment: Forethought Not Afterthought-Current Practices and Innovations in Graduate Medical Education, September 10-12, 2003, in Boston.